RE:RE:Put the heat on short sellersSeeing your post, I immediately checked with my RBC online to get verification. When I explained what I was doing and why, -(trying to lock up my shares with long dated sell orders, he understood immediately and thought it was quite a novel idea, but basically he said it wouldn’t work.
He was curious to understand my concerns with short selling with an implied sense that in the long haul, (random walk of markets) it probably wouldn’t have an impact one way or another.
My reply to that was that I pushed my money onto the table but was deprived of exclusive right to my shares, with those rights being arbitrarily passed on to others.
In order not to lose his interest in the conversation I explained that although my comments bordered on shareholder activism I realized that RBC was in a sense impartial in facilitating opportunities for both long and shorts, -in a yet to be decided contest. You see? I can grovel when I have to. Ha ha.
I asked him if perchance, there were some brokerage accounts that offered special protection over others in this matter such as LIFs RIFs TFSAs etc. Answer, no.
I asked him if I could buy any protection by opening a premium account to gain more control over my shares re the shorting. Answer no.
But wait, the door didn’t quite slam shut. He gave a brief description of how the short pool functioned. He said that they would know my shares were long dated sell orders and their first obligation would be to me as a client to put those shares in my hands when I decided to sell them, because I come first like a 1st mortgage holder. But based on the liquidity in the pool, they monitor it closely so as not to get caught short. So if enough longs did the same thing, brokerages might pull in their horns and limit the available short supply. I should think that’s pretty iffy but possible. In a surprise takeover some of the houses could be caught in a short squeeze and in rare instances all of them.
But ol_ griz, I think in the main you are right!